Sirius had sent Remus away, to reach out to Bertha's family, to find out more details from the family, pretend he was an old classmate reaching out after Bertha had stopped getting in contact with him -maybe the family would believe him, and tell him how long had she been acting strange, or if they have noticed something perhaps, that they were unwilling to share with the Prophet, and perhaps he could float the theory of her having met an unsavoury person in Albania, not that he knew anything more, no, of course not…
Those were the reasons, as well as excuses that he gave Remus in order to gain a few days of respite, alone, to collect his thoughts. He had realised that he could not go forth with all his plans with Remus breathing down his neck. The moment he started to talk more about his plans of once again tracking down Peter, the more he could see apprehension clouding his old friend's face. Sirius felt awful to admit it to himself, but he felt hindered by the person he considered his last ally and friend.
However, while Remus was harder to manoeuvre through schemes without him being called out on mad and outlandish ideas, Magdalena seemed much easier to convince. The clearer his head got, the more he found himself able to reflect on his time spent with her, and the more he started to understand her.
While he had been the one to pity when they first met, it was clear now to him that the witch had been, from the beginning, a lonely drunk seeking escape from her own misery and emptiness, without knowing how. He felt that he was understanding Dumbledore's reasoning more and more when he asked her to host him. She was selfish, and so was he. And if she thought she could find salvation from her self-exiled pitiful soul by watching him achieve his goals and rid himself of his own demons, good. He could use that for his own benefit.
Sirius religiously checked the pocket watch Remus had lent him. He had overestimated how long the Polyjuice he had left would last, and had run out of it quickly, five days after Remus had left. Three days after he had arrived in England, according to the pocket watch. And according to the hand he had just charmed to track Magdalena's movements, she was hours away from reaching the inn.
What he also knew he needed was to distract himself from his demons before being able to rid himself of them. It was that which he sought in his nights of solitude in Albania, while chasing dreams of being among others, of not having to hide himself day and night. And by God, she knew how to distract him, and how to distract his demons.
The spacious room he had at the inn felt like his tiny cell in Azkaban by the second night after Remus had left. The wide bed and high ceiling turned back into the damp stone walls and threadbare rags he used to lay down on. He had not slept well since Remus's departure, and was apprehensive to try the vial that Ablai had given him - he had made many Sleeping Draughts before, and this was not resembling the purple potion he was used to, neither in colour nor in consistency.
Having to spend his days and nights in his Animagus form, unable to bear being in the room at the inn by himself and instead choosing to sleep outside, curled up with other animals. He had taken everything he needed, and stepped out of the room forever, not bearing to look at its empty four walls a single moment more. Having thrown himself outside however, he felt relapsing back into the mindset he had his year of being on the run after his escape, and felt a certain madness enveloping him, in a terrifyingly short amount of time.
And birthed from that madness, certain events occurred that made him realise perhaps he needed Magdalena for another reason as well. Perhaps he had been too hasty in asking Remus to leave him to his own devices. Perhaps he did need someone to question his schemes and his sanity, before he would do things he would regret.
Could he bear telling Harry that once again, the loudest voice in his head was telling him to murder Peter Pettigrew at all costs? Carry his fresh corpse and declare that he had finally done the murder he had been imprisoned for, and killed the murderer of those dozen Muggles all those years back?
Remus's voice rang in his ears - it wasn't wartime anymore. Yet all he knew before he was locked away were the times of war, and he asked himself not what Remus or Dumbledore would have done as he had looked at Emin the innkeeper, but what Mad-Eye would have done to extract information.
He did not hurt the innkeeper, no. No, he most certainly did not, so was what he did so bad? Not at all. And he Obliviated him after extracting the information, and Emin appeared none the wiser as Sirius watched him the day after. A bit confused, sure, but by noon, he seemed back to his old self, several times chasing him in his Animagus form out from his place by the kitchen.
And the information Sirius had now, what he had seen through Emin's eyes and just a little bit of Legilimency… well, he could do so much with it, once he could walk again as a man, and not a dog…
He had watched her come into the inn while in his Animagus form, half-asleep in a corner of the inn. He learnt that he was welcome in as long as he pretended to chase around pests every now and then, and even helped Emin with a rowdy customer or two, biting at their ankles while the innkeeper threatened him out with his wand, before finally putting what looked like a Jelly-Legs Curse when the drunk was far away enough, and throwing their wand in the other direction.
He raised himself up on his four legs, and approached her as she came in and took a seat. She exchanged a few words with Emin, which at first he could not understand, until he figured they were trying to figure out which languages they both spoke, until they seemed to settle on Greek as a common one - which, apart from a few greetings, Sirius could not understand much of. He waited by her side as they seemed to exchange a few pleasantries and she asked for a drink, before she shook his hand, for a reason he could not understand, and gave him a few coins.
Sirius tried to persuade her to leave, as he had many things to tell her about, however she seemed obstinate, pulling back at her robes every time he tried to grab at them and guide her out. She sat in a corner of the inn, and patted the seat next to her, which he eventually managed to climb. She waited until he was facing her, and watched her place an Imperturbable Charm, before placing her hands meditatively under her chins.
"I know you can listen. You may as well listen to me, and listen well, because I won't repeat myself again." she muttered, before taking a sip of her drink. "I'll tell you why I came all the way here once, and I won't say it again.
My mother was a Muggle, my father a Squib. His folks tried to beat some sense of magic into him, both magically and physically, but nothing took. We know why, because we know in this country and in this age, but back then, back there, they didn't know, or care much. So when their only child was a witch… Well, I may as well have been a Muggleborn, with parents as spiteful as Harry's aunt and uncle. They couldn't bear to have a magical kid, not when my father regaled my mother with tales of what wizards can do, and what they did to a child whose only mistake was being born without magic.
Back then, if you couldn't afford to get your child to school, you had to find a mentor to take your kid as an apprentice. Avizina Amariei was close to being retired, but took me in when she saw how hopeless I would have been with my folks. They practically threw me in her little cart. What happened to my folks? I don't know, and neither do they. Avizina became my mother, my father, my mentor and my confidant for the next twenty years of my life.
She was still spry and had a good fight still left in her, so when Albus Dumbledore reached out to foreign wizards to fight in the first war, she wasted no time in joining the fight for good, as she called it. Back when Grindelwald was waging war, she did not participate, and this time… she had a thirst for it, and got me involved as well. That was how I met Albus Dumbledore, for the first time.
Now, I'm not the greatest duellist, but I know what I'm good at. I can make myself well-liked and gain the confidence of people. You think I'm a poor Occlumens, and that's fine with me, because I spent the entire war having people try to peer into my mind. You have to let some vulnerabilities out, let them think they succeeded. Sure, it won't work with Legilimens as good as Dumbledore, but it worked with whoever was needed.
Alas, I digress. When Avizina died, may she be sanctified, that was my first debt to Albus Dumbledore. Get me her body, from wherever she was, and let me take it back to her home, and bury her with full rites, like we do to our kind. And so he did, and so I promised my first debt.
After the war… I don't know what I did, really. I wonder…" she stopped for a few moments, pausing to collect her thoughts. "Many years later, he brought me this gentleman, this Fabian Bones, who was a Professor of Defence Against Dark Arts. Blonde-haired, tall, handsome man. Deep-set eyes, a strong jaw… alas, I digress again. Albus presented him to me a bit before he started his tenure. Said Fabian could make use of some of Avizina's old books, on account of his interests and what he wanted to teach his seventh-years, and wanting to branch into Alchemy, and so on. Alright with me, have at it, I told them. But Avizina's old books were all in a certain lost dialect of Old Slavonic- they were her father's before hers, and so on. I knew how to read them, and Fabian stuck with instead of taking the books and leaving, and he'd come on some days, and then week-ends, and I visited Hogsmeade when I knew he'd be there, and so on… he clung to me as I read to him and he transcribed, and I clung to him in all other moments. But no matter how much I looked at him, I didn't see how his eyes changed and how crazed they became with such arcane knowledge until it was too late." She stopped, and Sirius filled in the blank with her earlier confession. She had spoken without much emotion, looking not at him, but in the distance. He realised then that with people around, he had to maintain his Animagus form, which meant he could not interrupt her, could not do anything apart from sitting and listening to her.
"And my debt to Albus Dumbledore doubled with Fabian's death and his hand in the outcome of my trial. But helping you… that is my chance to clear the slate. Don't mistake my coming with anything else, would you now?" she waited for him to nod, before looking at her drink and raising herself. "Let us go."
Magdalena raised herself, and Sirius followed her out of the inn, after exchanging a final word with Emin. With dusk fast approaching and the inn at a far enough distance, he turned himself back from his Animagus form, and caught up to her, walking alongside her.
"Here." she said, offering him a thermos. He opened it, only to see a muddy-coloured liquid he knew all too well. "You don't need to take it here, of all around here, this deep in the mountains especially, don't get much news from Britain, and even if they did - long as you didn't kill any of their own, they couldn't care less."
Sirius put the small thermos in a leather bag he'd managed to snatch a few days ago. After all, not a single person he asked had mentioned that they knew about anyone named Sirius Black, and related to the witch his experiences, which only confirmed it.
"I did find someone that does know Peter Pettigrew, however… that innkeeper there." he pointed towards the direction of the inn, before scratching at his beard. "Bertha's disappearance is related to him. I s- I know it." What he wanted to say was that he more or less saw it, however decided against it at the last moment, not wanting to explain anything more. Safe to keep it as a hunch for now. "That's why I wanted to see Ablai again."
He knew now - somehow, that old witch sent him there, to that specific inn, to the one where Bertha must have been seen last, to the one innkeeper whose head held a memory of Peter Pettigrew, who surely must have killed her. He did not need a confirmation as much as anything to do with his location. And if Ablai managed to point him towards the direction of Bertha's last disappearance, surely she could point, somehow, where Peter must have been hiding. He would look through every single stack of hay in this country, if he had to, to catch that little-
"I'm surprised Mina Ablai, of all people, took a liking to you."
"Hm?" he furrowed his brows at how she worded it, and the way she chose to stress 'you'.
"She's a piece of work, she is… You are a strange man, Sirius. A strange man indeed. And you plan, with her help then- is to what, do you want to capture Peter Pettigrew now?"
"I do." he breathed.
And he will.
He watched Magdalena look at him incredulously, before repeating himself.
"We're changing plans. I've left Remus to enquire more about Bertha. It's all I can do, it's all we can do. Right now, we're on to clearing my name, and wiping that slate of yours." If that was what she wanted to call it, so be it.
"Alright with me then…ah, yes." the witch rummaged through her pockets as she spoke, handing him a piece of parchment. "With that last of the potion I also have this letter from Harry. I did not open it… I wanted to answer it and let him know you're safe but cannot reply, however Albus dissuaded me from it."
"Harry would have only worried more." Sirius stated as a matter-of-fact, and Magdalena nodded.
"Which is… Don't open it now! It's already dark, and she's an old woman, remember. She'll be preparing to sleep any moment now. Better get her in a good mood."
Sirius had already unfolded the letter, however decided to fold it back as he listened to her. She was right - the sooner they would be on their way, the quicker he could be on Peter's tail, the sooner he could, instead of having to exchange letters with Harry, be able to ask him, face-to-face, how his day has been, and what he wanted to talk about. He put the letter in his pocket, and they both Apparated in front of the fence. Sirius took a step forward, before stopping dead in his tracks as Madalena Apparated nearby.
All the windows in the house lit by candlelight, and he listened closely, a finger on his lips, as his other hand grasped his wand tightly. Female voices rang through the windows, voices whose owners he could not recognise, voices whose words he could not understand, but he soon enough knew what they signified.
They both stood in front of the house, as its walls were almost shaken by the unmistakable sounds of a dirge.